Daily Digest: Divine Intervention Edition

Indiana pastor Carl Sanders walked into a Dollar General in Evansville Friday night to find a masked man holding an unknown object wrapped in plastic and demanding money from the clerk. When the man turned toward Rev. Sanders and ordered him to the ground, Sanders pulled his own (actual) gun and ordered the would-be robber to the ground. The man complied, and Sanders held him there until police arrived. The object he had been threatening the clerk with turned out to be a spoon wrapped in a plastic bag. . .

It was recently reported in this space that Ithaca gun company would be expanding to Horry County, South Carolina, joining PTR Industries, who is relocating from Connecticut, and possibly Stag Arms in the same business park. Now comes news that the county is in talks with the state Department of Natural Resources to open a public shooting range in the same area, providing a venue both for manufacturers to test their products as well as an opportunity for the public to take part in the shooting sports. It’s nice to still see some places expanding gun possibilities in light of the horrible news coming out of places like California and Connecticut.

“The purpose of the San Antonio rally, sensibly held at the Alamo, where hundreds died of gunfire, was to intimidate.” — Francis Wilkinson, in his anti-gun diatribe over at the Bloomberg View.

A Garda armored car driver who stopped to leave a {ahem} deposit in a McDonald’s restroom in West Chicago ended up leaving a little more than he planned. It seems he set his S&W 9mm on top of the trash can while sitting down, and when the deed was done he forgot to retrieve it. It wasn’t until he reached his next stop that he realized his mistake and made a frantic call to the McDonalds, but it was to no avail as the orphaned gun had disappeared. Police were called, video was watched, a homeless guy was searched, and the gun remains at large.

This video showcases, well… not a whole lot, but it amused me. However, at the end, it occurred to me that all that soda on the table around cardboard Justin really demonstrated how a shotgun at in-room distance really isn’t “just point it anywhere in the vicinity and pull the trigger.” Holes of 2.5″-3″ and patterns of maybe 6″, and not a bleeding 2-liter or soda can to be found.

Well the first two stories in this are just awesome. The first because it shows that even men of God carry because at times the Good Lord may be a lil too busy to defend everyone or one could argue that he gave us the tools and ability to defend ourselves so that he wouldn’t have to all the time. The second shows that not everyone has lost their ever loving minds when it comes to guns and giving folks the opportunity to take up the shooting sports.

I am a minister who carries, and I hope there are many more out there as well. I wouldn’t say that God is “too busy” to handle these sorts of things, but that he has given us free will as humans. There are a few humans who use their freedom to harm & terrorize others. While I would prefer to reach these folks through the Gospel, good deeds, and service, I view a criminal threatening others as an immediate situation. He has already made his choice; I carry so that I can keep the criminal from imposing his choices upon me or those around me. And for the children, because…it’s for the children.

Ah thank you for clearing that up pastor. Guess the old saying is true. ” a good shepherd watches his flock and moves it away from the wolves. a great shepherd stands between his flock and the wolves.”

If you unholster when you deposit…wear a jacket, put the gun in a pocket, hang the jacket on the rack and put your clothes back on. Hell, even taking a crap indexing the gun is better than leaving it on the damn toilet paper dispenser.

Roger that. I try to avoid pumping the bilge on unfriendly territory, but when I have to, I really try to avoid unholstering. One unfortunate time when doing both were necessary (because the gun was dragging my pants toward a really unsavory-looking floor), I successfully reholstered when the evolution was complete, but I think I touch-verified it 3x more before I exited the designated exercise area.

This is a scenario I’ve run into at work. Not only is there the weight factor when your pants are hanging around your ankles without the support of a cinched belt, but also the fact that with a higher stall your gun might be visible to others in the room. Not a big deal at the office since we are very gun friendly, but in public this could surely attract unwanted attention.

As for public shooting ranges, even here in the rights-averse NYC Metro area we’ve had a major new range open with 2 more on the way. Seems like entrepreneurs everywhere are realizing that lead can be turned into gold.

Saying “…hundreds died of gunfire…” at the Alamo is like describing the Battle of Gettysburg as gang style violence, or Lexington as a no-knock raid. I would argue that the siege of the Alamo would have been greatly shortened if those brave Texians had been disarmed prior to the Texas Revolution. It is not in spite of the willingness to bear arms that Texas won its independence from Mexico, but because of it. The author of the Bloomberg article fails to understand the context of the Alamo making her statement both historically inaccurate and culturally insensitive.